


Pockets Full of Stones

by Serindrana



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Beauty and the Beast, F/M, Hades/Persephone - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serindrana/pseuds/Serindrana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An assassin slips in from the roof. A woman works on a model whaling ship. There are better bargains that could have been made, but this is the one that happens.</p><p>Vaguely Hades/Persephone and Beauty and the Beast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theLadyofMayhem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLadyofMayhem/gifts).



_**I.** _

The Captain of the Watch kept a modest house by the standards of Dunwall's elite. It was three stories tall, with a grand total of four bedrooms, one of which housed a few bunks for the maid, cook, and valet, one of which stood empty, and two of which were occupied by the last members of the Curnow family.

Geoff Curnow gave his employees, if not his men, regular time off: all nights between eight o'clock and five in the morning, far more generous than most; two days a month, to be chosen by the individual, almost unheard of; and the freedom to use the bottom floor for personal projects and general living, which would have been absolutely scandalous if not for the fact that the main door to the house let on to the  _second_  floor.

Daud, however, slipped in from the roof.

One of the hall windows was open to the night air, either forgotten by the maid or left open intentionally. The hall was exactly the dimensions he'd expected, which meant there had been no alterations since the plans for the building had been drawn up. He glanced down the long hall in both directions. At one end would be the master bedroom, likely the Captain's. Adjacent to that would be a bathroom. At the other end, alongside the staircase, would be a room that a glimpse through a window last week suggested was a study, or even a proper library.

It was only an hour and a half since the staff had retired to the lowest floor. Perhaps he should have waited a little longer, watched for the moving flicker of lamplight that would signal his target moving towards bed. As it was, he had to guess.

He guessed the study.

Hiram Burrows had passed along enough information to suggest that Curnow was a man of cultured, if quiet, tastes. Not ostentatious in the least, but a fancier of fine food and drink, and travel as well. A man like that didn't retire early, in his experience. No, a man like that would take a tumbler of whiskey and a fine cigar, sit in his study, and contemplate... what? Natural philosophy? The newer concepts of law and punishment and reform? Bawdy rhymes collected in an anonymous work?

Daud looked again at the shadowed bedroom and the equally shadowed stairway, then padded quietly to the closed study door. The other Curnow, the niece, was likely out of the house entirely. She was of so little importance and concern that he hadn't looked into her life much, only her movements, and her movements suggested that she was gone nine months of every year, at the very least - which usually translated to weeks on end, in practice. He hadn't seen her arrive at any point that day, and his men hadn't reported seeing her the days before, either.

He tested the knob. The latch was smooth, well-oiled, and it gave easily at a gingerly nudge. The hinges, too, were silent. Warm light spilled from the room in a brilliant line, and with a frisson of sensation - not quite pleasure, but not quite anything else, either - along his palm, what would have otherwise blinded him just added to the orange glow and shadow that everything took on.

A figure, wreathed in the golden glow of a living creature, stood bent over the table. He waited until he was sure whoever it was (the servants would not be allowed in here, so it would have to be Curnow himself, but were the man's shoulders really that narrow without his uniform?) faced only the table and not the door, then pressed a hand lightly against the wood, easing it open until he could make out details. He let the ghostly orange and yellow lights fade back into the roil of power in his veins, and blinked.

That was not Geoff Curnow.

He could almost  _hear_  the Outsider laughing, chiding him, mocking him, and he reached for the doorknob, ready to retreat. Callista Curnow had her uncle's height and pinched features, but not his breadth, or his bounty. She would have been an easy kill; her attention was wholly focused on the model whaling ship that she was assembling, piece by intricate, tiny piece, building the scaffolding that would no doubt house a tiny clay leviathan when it was completed. Perhaps, he thought, hesitating, he should kill her anyway. Perhaps he should make it look like a violent break-in, somebody with a grudge against the Watch.

But Burrows had been very clear, as he always was:  _send a message. The right people will understand it. Geoff Curnow, dead, under his own roof, with nobody a witness_. Daud set his jaw and began to pull the door shut, leaving the grave-faced woman to her toys.

A scuff on the steps turned his frustration into a flash of white hot rage before he could contain it. Amateur work, that's what this was. The modest house had made him careless. He clenched his right hand and the thrum of power was back, shifting his vision.

 _That_  was Geoff Curnow, coming up the stairs, opening his mouth as he saw the shadowed figure that was not his niece. Daud's heart jumped with another thump of deep-sea cold as his mark throbbed and time slowed to a halt. Without being able to see down the stairs much further than a corner, Daud couldn't risk dragging him that way. So instead, with a few quick steps and a heave, he dragged the immobile, unaware body of his target into the hall proper and then back, back, towards the bedroom and away from the still slightly-open study door.

By the time the world returned to its usual rhythm and flow, Daud had his forearm locked underneath Curnow's jaw, his other arm pinning the man against him. A good swift kick might have been able to take him down, and he should have put a blade through his throat, but Daud faltered, that imagined, mocking laugh echoing in his ears.

All evidence suggested that Geoff Curnow was as good a man as they allowed in Dunwall anymore. He kept a modest house and was kind to his servants. His niece came and went with freedom. The Lord Regent wanted him dead.

It was a split second decision, the kind he didn't relish making. "Do not scream, or speak, or make any sort of movement," he growled, even as Curnow thrashed, body trying to correct for all its motions in that space between seconds, motions it couldn't remember and couldn't comprehend. There was the expected moment of confused terror in his eyes, the stammering breath, the hissed, bitten off curse.

Daud tightened his hold just a little. Curnow was good; he fell silent, and waited.

"There's a man who very much wants you dead," he continued, his own voice reverberating strangely within his mask, distorted by its filter. "He has paid a great sum of money for it. Now, I-"

Curnow's cooperative silence broke, and there was the kick he'd half-expected, along with a sudden crack back of Curnow's skull, skewing his mask and unbalancing him. Daud snarled and twisted, using his weight and inertia to drag the man down to the floor. The thud was unavoidable. All he could do was throw his mass on top of him, draw his blade, and press it to the nape of his neck.

"I am not usually one to question my employers," Daud said, though why he was even talking anymore, why he was even trying, while his breath came fast and hard, eluded him. He pressed forward (and down, the edge of the blade biting into soft, vulnerable flesh). "But, Geoff Curnow, I am going to give you a choice. You can die-" and here he jammed his knee hard into the watchman's spine, eliciting a groan, "or you can disappear. Leave Dunwall. Slip out past the barricade. There are ways, and I am sure you know them."

At first, Curnow didn't answer him. Then, slowly, he tried to turn his head. Daud realized he couldn't entirely see him, not with how his mask had been pushed to one side, so he pressed the heel of his hand against the bony protrusions at the base of Curnow's skull and held him still as he tried to nudge his mask back into place with one elbow. He only succeeded in pushing it further off.

"And what do you get, in return?" the man asked, voice muffled by the plush runner.

Daud was just trying the shape of  _nothing_  in his mouth when a flash of warm lamplight reflected too-bright off one of the lenses in his mask, and his head jerked up. There, standing in the doorway, unprepared and foolish, was the niece.

She was backlit entirely, just a silhouette, and if she'd known how, she could have taken the advantage and likely struck him before he could counter. Instead, she stood frozen, no doubt staring at the two of them.

"Callista," Curnow rasped, " _go_."

Daud stared at her.  _Model whaling ship_  floated through his thoughts - such an odd thing to spend time on, such an odd thing to fascinate a woman. "Walk away, girl," he heard himself say, distantly.

It was not filtered by his mask.

She could see his face, at least a portion of it.

"You can't kill him," she said, with a sort of breathless wonder, like out of a dream. She wasn't entirely seeing what was in front of her. She couldn't be. "Don't kill him," she said.

Shouldn't she be screaming, shrieking, running down the stairs to call the guards who patrolled in the streets, in the vain hope that somehow somebody could help before the deed was done? Instead, she was doing exactly what she should be doing to stop a killing. She was staring him in the eye and refusing to look away.

"She's my price," Daud said.

Curnow swore, but Callista stayed motionless. In shock, or considering? She had built a model whaling ship in all its perfect details; if he could see her eyes, would they have the shine of logic in them? He glanced down, just for a moment, at where his sword rested against skin.

"It is a practical tithe," Daud said, thoughts marching lockstep with his words. "She's seen my face. I can't ensure she won't tell a soul, unless I have possession of her mouth."

"Kill me, and let her go. She'll leave the city. Callista, you'll leave the city," he said, and it was not a question.

"I can't do that," Callista said.

"There are notes, in my desk! Contacts! It can be done!"

"That's not what I mean, Uncle," she said, and Daud's heart hammered in his head and throat. "I won't let you die to protect me. I won't kill you." Her gaze, he thought, was on him, boring into him. "Besides, he's right. If he kills you, I'll find him."

"Callista!"

 _Daring, foolish girl_ , Daud thought. He couldn't look away from her.

"But if I go with him," Callista said, "you can get out of this city and away from whoever wants you dead." She was sounding out her words as she spoke, also thinking as fast as she could speak. The silhouette of her head tilted to one side, bird-like. "It's the High Overseer, isn't it?"

"Don't speak treason," hissed Curnow, even as Daud released the pressure on his spine and neck.  _Ah_ , that made even more sense than Burrows alone. It was the last piece, the one he'd been missing. The Overseers and the Watch had clashed in numerous places across the city in the last few months. The Overseers were led by a man in the Regent's pocket, foul and corrupt as the Wrenhaven itself. And then there was this man, this good man, who likely could not be bought.

"You need to disappear, Uncle, and one can slip through a blockade more easily than two. Besides, if you die, that means..."

The fight began to drain out of the body beneath Daud's knees. Something passed unspoken between the two. And then Callista straightened her shoulders and said,

"I'll go with you."

Curnow didn't protest. Daud sat up just enough to withdraw a sleep dart from the pouch at his waist, then bent down to prick the man gently with it, in the throat so it would take effect quickly. He waited until Curnow's breathing grew slower, until he could no longer lash out in one last ploy, and then he stood. Callista hadn't moved from her spot in the doorway.

"You can't kill me," he said.

"I know," she said.

"If you try, I will snap your neck, then come back for his," he said.

"I know."

He drew close enough to take her wrist. She flinched, but it was a small thing, reined in by pride and an incredible amount of self control. Reaching up, he pulled his mask properly into place.

And then he led her back to the window he had come in by, up to the roofs, and out to where his ferryman sat waiting.


	2. Chapter 2

They reached the crumbling walls of what had once been Rudshore after an hour or more on the water. The boat ride had been eerily quiet, her captor's masked counterpart accepting his new cargo in silence. Her captor himself sat behind her, and she knelt in the belly of the dinghy, watching the murky waters slide past.

There were rumors of faces in the water, the bodies of the dead bobbing up as the currents moved and their corpses, left to rot instead of burn to ash, bloated with gas. She saw no such faces, nor any bobbing, ghostly lights. It was almost anticlimactic, until she remembered that slash of light across her uncle's face, all the fear and pain in the twist of his brow, and the glint of the knife at his throat. More than once, she had lifted a hand to her own neck, before hunkering down again against the cold.

When they at last came to where the sea had broken through the high cement walls, she watched as their ferryman switched from rowing to poling, and nudged them into a barely noticeable notch, then secured the boat with a few heavy ropes. In the dim light from distant stars and streetlamps, she saw him turn to look at her, then behind her.

Her captor said, "Go on ahead. I'll take care of her."

The boat rocked in the water, and the ferryman was gone somewhere into the night ( _but where was the splash of water, the scrabble of feet on stone-)_ , leaving her with a hired killer she was suddenly very certain was about to drown her and leave her body to float out to sea. Callista turned, sending the small boat tilting to one side.

"Please-" she said, then exhaled sharply as the man grabbed her by the waist, his arm firm against the small of her back, pressing her tight against his chest. He stood, dragging her to her feet and sending the boat wobbling dangerously, knocking against the concrete, water sloshing over the side and soaking her house shoes through.

"Don't move," he said, his voice distorted by his mask, unnatural and too-loud in her ear. She shut her eyes, taking a deep breath and preparing for- what? The snapped neck? A blade in her back? Would he simply toss her over the side, like garbage?

Her hands, thrown up between them in some half-hearted show of defense, curled into the front of his red overcoat. If he threw her, she would try to take him with her. She'd drag him down. She'd-

The rocking boat disappeared, and along with it went the sharp edges of seabrine tang. All she could think was  _we're flying_.

The Abbey didn't say much on the topic of death, and what might come after, except that nothing  _did_  come after. Funerals were held to comfort the bereaved, not to send on the soul. To burn the body was to be efficient, considerate, and logical. To leave it out of sentimentality for the departed individual- that was the path to the Outsider. But what if death, that departure, was really just flying up, away from the fetid, roiling sea?

They were standing atop a strip of cement before the thoughts could fully form. Her knees threatened to buckle and she tried to step away, but the man held her too tightly. "I said, don't move," he repeated, and then the ground was gone again.

Somewhere in the whirling mess of distorted gulls' cries and the rush of wind and space around them, her thoughts fell into order just long enough for  _Outsider_  to whisper in her ear, her whole body going rigid.

 _Outsider, Outsider, Outsider_ , the evidence whispered. Men could not fly. Wretched, heretical killers in the dark made a dull, aching kind of sense, and she fought the urge to fight and pull away, or to scream, or to show in any way that now- now she wasn't sure that she could do this.

Each time they touched down, the shock of it made her body threaten to collapse. Cries of fear and pain tried to bubble up from her throat. Instead, she made herself cling to him, desperately, focusing on the drop down to the watery streets below. She tucked her head against his shoulder, and counted seconds by each moment of solidity beneath their feet.

And then they landed a final time and the man released her. Slowly, she lifted her head. He had raised his hands as if to pluck hers from his coat, but hesitated. She uncurled her fingers and stepped back, with every heartbeat repeating to herself that she would not run or scream.

They stood on top of a dilapidated building, surrounded by the Flooded District in all its night-drenched, rotting particulars. No lights burned in the windows of the apartment across the way. No Overseers or Watchmen walked the streets below. The roof they stood on had collapsed in on itself just a few feet from where they were.

There was nowhere to run to, anyway.

Callista straightened her shoulders and tried to feel as certain and as at peace as she'd felt in the hallway of her uncle's home. There were no other options. She drew on every inch of steel she had learned to gird herself with at funeral after funeral, deathbed after deathbed.

Turning, she fixed her gaze on her red-dressed captor. He was looking towards the hole in the roof.

"Tell me your name," she said.

He turned to look at her again, but didn't answer immediately.  _I already know your chin_ , she wanted to tell him,  _and where you live, and what you do._  Instead, she fought the impulse to cringe from the impassive, expressionless circles of glass over his eyes, the unsettling drop of the cannister where his mouth should be.  _Unnatural, cursed, dangerous_ -

She was giving in and looking away when he said, "Daud." And then he reached up and pulled off his mask completely.

Slinging it over his wrist, he held out a gloved hand. "One more jump," he said.

Her lips twitched in a grim, maybe hysterical echo of a smile. "Jump? That's what you call- that?" Her voice was steadier than she expected. The steel was working.

Did his lips quirk, just a little? "A transversal," he said, with just a hint of pride, then gestured towards the gaping, splintered hole. "Come on. It will be warmer down there."

Callista edged around him and went closer to the gap, peering down into it with quick little glances, never looking away from him for long. There were a few lamps lit down there, more in what looked like other rooms. It was a large building, grand.  _Rudshore_...

"The Chamber of Commerce building?" she asked, and she was surprised by how close his snort was. She'd looked away for half a second, but he was right behind her now, and the fear flared again, that he would push her to her death, let gravity take her. But how many times could he have let her go during their-  _transversals_? She swallowed down the panic.

"Good eye," he said, and reached for her waist again.

She side-stepped him. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked. In the few seconds she'd had to decide, she hadn't had much room for thought, and she was no oracle to read the stars on the trip out here. There were a few possibilities that had come to mind: slave, of several sorts, or a bartering chip of some kind (though who would want Geoff Curnow's pinch-faced niece, except Geoff Curnow himself?), or just a quiet death where her uncle couldn't see. But somebody touched by the Outsider could have intentions she could never divine, or comprehend.

She tried to search his face for some kind of hint, but the light wasn't good enough. All she could make out were harsh lines and craggy, jagged dips and angles of scarred and weathered skin.

He considered her, all the broad, bulky heft of him, and then he simply shrugged.

"I'm not sure yet."

Somehow, that was worse. All around her were waterlogged streets filled with the rotting corpses of plague victims, and here she was with a paid killer who didn't know what to do with her.

* * *

She remained wooden and unyielding as he brought them down to the platform his bed sat upon. She was a smart girl; even without seeing the mark on his palm, he was sure she'd put together that the Outsider was involved. That she responded by shutting herself away even more was interesting, though not particularly unexpected.

He let go of her as soon as they were steady, and didn't miss her relieved flinch away when he finally gave her space. He tossed his mask into a bin by one of the windows, to be cleaned of any plague residue in the morning, along with his gloves, and he consciously turned his back on her.

She had no knife, as far as he could tell, or weapon of any kind. If she wanted to try and tackle him down to the next floor down, she could, but he suspected that she was simply standing there, watching, hollow-eyed.

He had seen that look before. Death caused all sorts of responses in people: rage, horror, screaming grief, desperately-made deals with people or things greater than they were, stupidly-made decisions to either block out the pain or try and make it go away. And sometimes it taught people to deaden themselves to match it.  _Callista and Geoff Curnow, the last of their line_ , he thought, then turned his mind to the problem of what to do with her.

Give his men half an hour for Rulfio to tell them all about the strange captive their master had brought back, and they'd be all skulking in the halls out there, trying to catch a glimpse or screw up the courage to just  _ask_. He needed sleep before any of that. Thank everything halfway holy that Billy was out on a long-term job -  _she_  wouldn't hold back.

Daud glanced over his shoulder. Callista was, indeed, still watching him warily, but with that odd emptiness.

"In the morning we'll figure out more permanent accommodations," he said. "Until then, the only bed available is mine."

She glanced away to it.

"It's only large enough for one," he said, because she wouldn't. "Your choice."

Callista looked back at him, and  _there_  it was, some kind of spark. She could still be surprised. "I-" she said, then stopped, frowned, and in the stronger lamplight, he could see every crease and angle and wisp of hair worrying at her brow.

His patience wasn't natural. It grew out of his hesitation in the Curnows' house, out of his confusion at why he'd brought her along at all. It wasn't too late; he could slit her throat and dump her body, and Geoff Curnow would only ever be able to  _suspect_. But she built model whaling ships and had sacrificed herself without playing the martyr. And he wanted her to make a choice.

But his patience wasn't natural, and after several long, silent minutes while Callista struggled to simply say  _the bed's fine_  (because wasn't that what any reasonable lady would choose, a bed over a splintered floor?) Daud brushed past her, grabbed up the blankets sitting folded at the foot of the bed, and tossed them onto the floor, kicking them out into something like a nest.

"Time's up," he said, and sat down on the mattress and tugged at his boots. "Floor it is."

The Flooded District - and Dunwall - were no place for gentle kindness or gracious hosts. He tossed one heavy boot aside. Callista moved at last, settling down without a word in the mess of blankets.

"There's no ceiling," she said.

"There is over the bed," he replied. "It's enough." She couldn't choose where to sleep, but she could complain about the architecture? He looked at her in profile a moment, then shoved his pillow off to join her with a frustrated huff.

In the morning, he'd make sense of this.

* * *

Callista fell asleep soon after Daud did, mind too exhausted to think anymore. She curled on her side, fully-clothed, shoes and all, and pulled the surprisingly soft blanket over her shoulders and gave herself over to oblivion.

She dreamed of corpses in the water and strange lights dancing across the surface of a swollen, rotting river. She dreamed of men in whalers' masks, but instead of hard metal and pitch black leather, they were made of bone and human skin. She tossed and turned as the smell of riverwater flooded her nose and mouth, then finally settled into a dreamless but uneasy sleep.

The next thing she knew, something was nudging at her cheek. It was wet and cold and as she screwed up her face and batted a hand at it -  _she was between jobs, no need to wake up early, what was the maid_ ** _doing_** \- it snuffled, breath hot and acrid.

Callista froze and kept her eyes shut.

 _Click, click_  went claws on the wood she slept on. The pillow beneath her head was lumpy and smelled  _wrong_ , not like her uncle's house at all, or her last employer's house. The blanket was not hers, and felt strange where it touched her bare forearm. Something panted heavily just above her head. She forced down a thick and uneasy swallow.

The memories of the night before seemed ill-formed and half-real, dancing across rooftops in the arms of an Outsider-touched killer, giving up what little life she had to protect her uncle without thinking, without thinking  _at all_. If she had just stayed in the study, he might have lived, she might still be home, they might be on their way to Serkonos instead.

 _Click, click_  went another set of claws, and a second panting breath joined the first.

 _Click, click_  went a third set, but before she could tell which direction the sound came from, something warm and solid and heavy landed on her legs, pinning her there.

There was another snuffle by her ear, another nudge of that cold, wet thing that must be the creature's nose. Not rats, these were too big to be rats, and she felt mildly relieved that she wasn't about to be devoured because of a lack of rat lights. She tried to breathe slowly, evenly, pretending she was still asleep.

Where was Daud?

She couldn't hear his deep, occasionally rattling breathing, but her own pulse was loud in her ears. Was he still asleep? Had he- left? Should she risk calling his name?

Did she need his help at all?

Wincing, she cracked open one eye, and saw a wolfhound's nose and muzzle, sharp teeth and panting tongue, a few inches from her face.

She shut her eyes tightly and took a deep, shaking breath, then several more in quick succession, and tried very hard not simply dissolve into exhausted, frustrated tears. She didn't need anything else. It was all bad enough already. She didn't need slavering, terrifying, vicious beasts sniffing over her like a carcass, ready to savage her, ready to-

The hound licked her face.

Callista shot up, holding her arms in front of her, expecting some sort of lunge. But the hound just stared at her.

He wagged his tail.

There was another, draped over her legs as if asleep, and a third standing a few feet away, watching the other two. Daud was nowhere to be seen, and sunlight streamed in through the broken ceiling, illuminating rich red curtains and stacks of books, fine glass and the remnants of fine Serkonan and Pandyssian hardwood floors. Did they belong to him? Had to, to be allowed in here. Did he send them to guard her? Or did they smell his scent on the blankets and now on her, and had taken the duty upon themselves?

She leaned her head back against the bed, and focused on breathing.

By the time she heard human voices and footsteps, she'd calmed herself down as best she could. She was just trying to shift her leg, which had fallen asleep under the weight of the hound on her lap, when she heard Daud's voice, soft but growing louder.

She couldn't make out the words at first, but she did see the ears of the wary hound prick up, head swivelling towards the stairs that led from the half-obliterated level they were on down to the main floor. Trying to stand was a lost cause, so she waited, alert and tense.

"-free rein of the district, though I suspect she will stay within the main base given how difficult it is to get between buildings on foot these days," Daud was saying. His voice approached, then became muffled as he passed below her. "None of you are to bother her, but if she asks for assistance of any kind, render it. If it's reasonable."

"Yes, Master," said a heavily filtered voice.

"First order of business is to retrieve more elixir, and adjust rations," Daud continued. "And to bring one of the cleaner mattresses up from the barracks."

"Will she be staying- in here?"

"If she wants," Daud said.

"Master," the filtered voice said, "if I might ask-"

"No." The authority in that single word made all the hounds lift and turn their heads, and the two not draped over her walked,  _click-click-clicking_ , to the edge of floor. They were very large, very angular beasts, still gangly with youth but on the verge of filling out. And they were deadly. For all their gentleness with her, they could still tear a man's throat out in half a second. She could see their coiled muscle.

Apparently Daud could, as well, because he swore and shouted, " _What blighted imbecile let them in here!?_ "

One of the hounds barked in response, a cracking, sharp sound, and Callista flinched at it, then held very, very still as Daud, rage evident in his heavy bootfalls across the floor below, made for the stairs. He didn't call her name, but he took the steps two by two, and when he finally saw her, she could see his shoulders rising and falling.

The hound on her legs looked over at him, then yawned, sharp teeth gleaming in the now too-harsh sunlight, and put his head down on her lap again.

She stared up at Daud. He stared down at her.

And then he cleared his throat, and said, "Cernuus.  _Heel_."

The hound in her lap, to his credit, stood up on command and trotted over to Daud's side.

"Thank you," she said, her own voice small and hoarse, and winced as she flexed her legs, feeling coming back in sharp pinpricks.

He said nothing in response, except, "Aberrat, Efferus." The other hounds joined their fellow. Daud continued to stare at her, even as he pointed a hand behind them, to the stairs, and the hounds, after a few moments of hesitation, trotted away.

"They're yours, then?" Callista asked.

"Yes."

She waited for him to tell her what she'd already heard - that she could move about freely, that she could ask for help. She waited for him to introduce whoever was lurking at the bottom of the steps, or just explain the hounds.

He didn't. The clicking of the hounds' nails faded. She could hear no other footsteps or any indication there was anybody else in the room. He looked her up and down.

"Are you- unharmed?" he asked.

Slowly, she levered herself up. She ached all over. "Yes," she said, then frowned. "I- yes."  _No. No, not at all_. If she begged him to take her home, would he do it?

"Good," he murmured, his shoulders relaxing.

Had he been worried?

The weight of his gaze made her retreat, her uncertainty and confusion erasing with a heavy hand her earlier hysteria, the memory of a warm body comfortable against her legs. His eyes never left her as she took a few steps towards the edge of the floor, peering over.

The room was empty beyond the jagged, broken boards, and sunlight filled the whole lower level, illuminating cabinets and shelves, doorways and carpets. The wall was broken in one spot, and through the gap she could see other buildings and, far below, the murky shifting of water.

She looked back at him. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"What am I doing here?" she asked.  _What are you going to do with me_?

"I'm not sure yet," he said, flatly echoing his words from the previous night.

"That's-"  _not good enough_ , she almost said, then bit her tongue.

"Would you prefer it," he asked, taking a few steps toward her, "if I said you're here to keep me company? Warm my bed? Entertain my men?" His words dripped with bitter humor, but her blood still chilled. "Because I could say it, if it would make you do something."

"Do something?"

How easy  _would_  it be to do something? To turn and jump from the broken platform, hoping she could somehow snap her neck in a one-story fall? Try to grab him and take him with her, pretending the Outsider wouldn't save his life and curse hers? Her gaze darted around the room. There was a knife by the bed, now that she was looking, and some kind of dart rested on a nearby table.

Her shoulders sagged. There was no point - he was trained, and she was just a governess. She didn't even have highborn arrogance to help her along.

Daud stopped barely a foot away. They were of a height, but he was broader, thicker, more powerful in every inch. "Do something," he said, firmly.

Callista looked down and waited for him to leave.

A growl slipped from his throat, as savage and ragged as the hounds', and he reached out, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her forward. "Are you such a  _mouse_?" he asked. "Is this all you are? Where's the woman who gave up her life for her uncle's? Or was that just more of this- this-  _passivity_?"

"I-" she breathed, cheeks flooding with flame and bones growing leaden. She  _had_  acted to save her uncle, and had done - could  _do_  - more, but not here, oh, not  _here_. She had given up her life for her uncle's, that was true. And now it was gone.

"Do something! Do something, damn you!" he bellowed. "Respond! Scream! Cry, hit me, kick and bite, just show me you're  _alive_!"

But Callista had learned long ago that fighting never got her anywhere, at least not where death was concerned, and the man holding her, his breath and words hot on her cheek, was Death on two legs, wearing a man's face. She went limp in his arms, ignoring the shame and wretchedness that came along with the lassitude of her limbs. Long ago, it had been hard to give up. When they'd burned her brother's body, she had wailed and beat on the doors to the crematorium, and her mother and Uncle Geoff had had to drag her away by force, lock her in her room until the smokestacks finished belching their acrid black fumes for the day and the small urn was already on the mantlepiece.

By the time her mother had died, she had simply sat, looking straight ahead, for a day in silent vigil.

Daud shook her again, then swore and shoved her away. She stumbled back, legs hitting the edge of the bed. It was easy to sink down onto it. He hovered close by, watching her, heaving for breath.

" _Do_  something, Callista Curnow," he said, softly. "Or you'll be better off in the plague pits."

And then he left, boots as heavy on the stairs as when he'd arrived.


	3. Chapter 3

"Master, she's left the main building."

Daud glanced over to where Rinaldo stood, mask off for just a moment while he wiped away the sweat that had pooled in the hollows of his face. "On foot?"

"She asked for a pole boat," he said. His brow furrowed. "Master, are you sure it's wise, letting her go about alone?"

 _No_ , he thought,  _but at least she's finally done something_. The thought was so alien he barely knew what to do with it. He felt as numb as she looked.

It had been two days since they'd last spoken. She had moved her blankets and the mattress he'd brought her far enough away from his bed that she could claim distance, but it was only a few feet. She had wandered the area near his desk while awake, but the one time he'd caught her opening one of the old records drawers, she'd closed it as soon as she'd seen him watching. Beyond that, she was little better than a weeper.

"She's a grown woman," he said.

"She's a prisoner." Rinaldo rubbed down the inside of his mask, carefully not meeting Daud's gaze.

He didn't honor Rinaldo with a response, instead looking back at his ledger book. His boys had taken care of two smaller targets, and the money for the Curnow job would be coming in shortly. Billy would be back by the end of the week, if all went well, and she'd bring in a hefty sum herself, even given all the repairs her gear would likely need from such a long time out. If he focused on the numbers, he wouldn't leap out of his chair and demand to know which direction Callista had left in.

If her first action was to leave, then so be it. She couldn't pass the walls of the district if she wanted to, and if she ended up drowned or infected-

His pen stopped, bleeding ink onto the page.

If she died, he would no longer owe her or her uncle anything. And yet the thought twisted his stomach, as much as seeing her with the hounds had, as much as her numbness had.

He threw down the pen and stood. "Where did she go?"

* * *

The townhouse had been abandoned for at least half a year, Callista guessed as she stepped through the broken door and ascended the rickety steps. Its foundation was high enough that it had avoided at least the current round of flooding, though she could see water stains on the peeling wallpaper. It wasn't so different from Geoff's house, aside from the different entrance. There was the kitchen. Up these stairs, a bedroom and a sitting room.

She walked quietly, not daring to reach a hand out and trail it along the bannister. Its familiarity was a sharp counterpoint to the grating, awkward opulence of the old Commerce building. Its silence was more than welcome. But how long would it be before Daud learned she was gone? How long would it take for him to find her? Had his touch marked her in some way, placing a beacon on her soul, or could he see the ripples in the scummy water long after her little boat had passed?

Would he care?

If she touched the walls of anything within his territory, she felt half-certain he would know and appear within the space of a single heartbeat. He'd demand to know what she was  _doing_ , stare at her with that demanding expression, those hungry eyes.

Callista stopped on the first landing, and turned around slowly. Old paintings hung on the wall. The bannister had once been finely polished, but now only gleamed in the late afternoon sun in patches. Through an open doorway she could see furniture with sumptuous upholstery, now rotted and sagging.

She'd sat two days' vigil in the Commerce building, mourning herself. But today the waiting and the numbness had finally moved her toward action in a way Daud's shouts and curses and exhortations hadn't. She'd needed air. She'd needed  _herself_ , to see if she was still there. Silly, to mourn herself before testing it, but-

Callista made herself focus on her surroundings. That was always the first step. Take inventory of what still remained, then reorder her life around that. The gaping wounds would never heal and could never be filled, but she had found that if she skirted their borders, they only ached occasionally.

She counted paintings on the wall, then cracks by the molding. Beneath the familiarity, something plucked at her, made her uneasy. She frowned. Rudshore was different from the plagued areas she'd seen. There were no bricked up doorways, or sheets thrown over bodies. But something seemed to hum in the back of her mind, something that lessened the comfort of the place with every twitch of her fingers, every thump of her pulse.

She looked up the last flight of stairs.

Up there, would there be a study? A room filled with books, with a table in the center for entertaining or researching or building model ships? Would there be a man's master bedroom? Trinkets of a life lived at sea?

Something stirred in her and beckoned her upwards, and slowly, step by cautious step, she climbed to the top floor.

The layout was just the same as Geoff's house. A door stood closed between the final landing and the room beyond. When she turned her head, she saw another door at the far end of the hall, hanging ajar. She could see the curtains of a bed.

She turned back to what she knew was the study.

That same humming, thrumming something that twisted her stomach by small degrees joined up with that creeping, crawling, tempting feeling that had pulled her up the stairs. Her ears seemed to buzz, to ring. Frowning, she moved haltingly to the door. She touched the wood lightly, then nudged it until it swung open.

The room beyond it was filled with shelves and books and a violet glow that emanated from the centerpiece: a table that held, in place of any model whaling ships, a shrine built of bone and blood and ships' rope. Her world slowed to a crawl, as if she were once again hurtling over the expanses of flood in Daud's arms.

Sitting on the table, just in front of the shrine, was a young man with dark eyes who didn't seem surprised to see her at all.

A part of her knew him.

"Do you live here?" she asked.

He canted his head to the side. "What an odd question," he said, then lifted a hand and beckoned her closer. She didn't move.

"It's not an odd question at all. I didn't think… Rudshore flooded so long ago." Her brow furrowed. She  _knew_  him, but from where? She'd say he was one of Daud's men, and she'd heard his voice before, filtered through a mask, but she had known him before he'd spoken.

"I am not one of Daud's men," he said, as if plucking the thought from her skull. She stiffened, watched as his expression went from open, curious, even amused, to suspicious and confused. Then his eyes widened by just a hair.

He smiled, a slow and lazy thing, and crossed his arms over his chest. " _Oh_ ," he murmured, voice honey-sweet and smooth. " _You're_  what he's hiding from me.  _You're_  the blazing boundary of nothing he's built inside of his thoughts." He stretched out a hand again, and crooked his finger, his dark eyes boring into her.

She knew. Her heart quailed, and she took a step back, shaking her head. "No."

"Very well," he said, but his jaw twitched just a little, and he shifted where he sat. Was he impatient, like a child, an unruly boy who knew very well what to say and do but resented it with every fiber of his being?

She continued creeping backwards, until her heel knocked against the doorframe.

A thought stopped her, hand reaching for the knob. Did he  _have_  to obey her? What were the chances that the Outsider was simply polite? She remembered the hounds laying down at her feet, and the way Daud had watched her, until that terrifying spike of anger.

"I'm being polite," he answered her, and she flinched.

Slowly, he slipped from the shrine on the table. He watched her, unblinking, and her muscles seized up again. She couldn't shut the door. The thrumming hum in her veins and ears grew louder, as did the glow of indigo throughout the room.

She closed her eyes tightly and tried to think of her uncle's library, and with a jerk she slammed the door between them.

The humming grew fainter. Her heartbeat slowed. Her body began to tremble, and she leaned heavily against the door, forehead against the wood. She counted her breaths.

Hands settled on her waist.

She opened her mouth to scream, but whoever had her shoved her hard against the door, pinning her body and breath. She tried to fight, to thrash, to resist like she stupidly,  _foolishly_  hadn't the night Daud had dragged her through the sky.

"Shh," the Outsider whispered in her ear, and it was like waves lapping at a beach, rainwater sluicing down thick glass. She closed her eyes again and sagged against the wood, the fight stolen from her limbs.

The door opened. The violet glow returned. The thrumming mixed with the Outsider's soothing breaths, and she let him lead her back to the shrine, let him settle her on the ground before it, sitting against one table leg. He crouched in front of her and peered into her face.

He looked like a young man, as young as she was, and there was too much gentleness and curiosity in the lines of his forehead and mouth. She didn't trust him.

"He  _hid_  something for me. He has tried before, but this is the first time he's succeeded. Why you?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

"He has been with other women, but he has never hidden one from me. Who  _are_  you?"

She opened her mouth as if compelled, shaped the first syllable of her name, but then he settled a broad hand on the crown of her head.

His eyes became depthless whirlpools, and when his lips parted in thought, his mouth split wide and yawned, full of teeth and all the strange things in the gullets of whales. Music flooded her ears, too loud to think through, and the world around her seemed to warp and pull and twist. Heat tracked down her cheeks -  _tears_. Terror flooded her, then pain, then pleasure, then sadness, each new sensation piling on top of the others, swirling like sediment disturbed in the Wrenhaven. She saw floating bodies and the depthless dark of the seas. Low, deep, sweet singing that had no words deafened her.

And then it was gone. The Outsider looked only like a man, and he no longer touched her. He only watched her with his head tilted to one side like a bird's.

"Callista Curnow," he said. "You believe you are cursed by death, and now you have come to live where death resides. Do you truly want to escape? He would let you."

"I don't want to die," she whispered, throat scratching and catching at the words.

"He would not kill you, either. Not now. Not as he has become. You are safer than you realize. He no longer knows how to give anything but power and leadership, but if he could, he would give you wonders. Isn't that what you dreamed of as a girl? It is an ancient song."

"I want my family."

"They are gone."

A pang struck her. "Uncle Geoff-"

He put a finger to her lips, and his dark eyes grew hollow for a moment. "Daud has kept his word. But I see a cup of poison if he does not flee this city, taking to the waves he both adores and loathes. Oh- he is  _interesting_. Such an interesting family Daud has found. Such waves, such depths. Such-"

He flinched.

An image appeared in her mind, as if he had dropped an open book and she could glimpse inside of it. Crashing waves, the steel hull of a ship, the sounds of gulls and screams and the bellows of a leviathan surrounded her. She could smell the salt brine and the stink of flesh as they cut into the beast's belly. There was a blade in her hand, rubber on her arms, and power and hunger in her heart.

Her vision cleared, and the Outsider still sat in front of her, a little paler than before.

Beneath his boy's face was a beast's, and she knew suddenly that if she could dive down to the darkest depths, she could drag him up and hang him from the scaffolding, and pull such anguish and power from him that maybe, just maybe, the hungry pit in her would be satisfied.

She reached out for him, imagining what it would be like to carve off his young man's cheeks and flanks as if they were only blubber. Instead, she only dragged her fingers lightly down his jaw.

He smiled, the briefest flicker of a thing. "He doesn't know you," he said. "Not yet. He's afraid to. He doesn't understand you, or himself, and so he hid you because he thought I would interfere." He laughed. "I could. I could tell him things, or tell you things. Or perhaps…" He reached out and rested a hand over her belly. "You could wear my mark. How that would frighten him, enrage him, if he were one day to see you shed your clothes and find-"

She batted his hand away. " _No_." His smile was unsettling, intoxicating, and unwanted. She focused on slicing his soft skin away. "I will not."

"Shed your clothes for him?"

Heat rose in her cheeks, but her eyes remained narrowed. "I will not wear your mark."

He considered it a moment, then shrugged. "Very well. It's more interesting if you don't, I think." He rose and turned away from her, an oddly human gesture. She stood as well, fighting the weakness in her knees. Every litany she had heard from the Abbey began to echo in time with the thrumming of the room.

The Outsider was an abomination that cultivated chaos and death. He was the darkest nature of mankind. His mark blazed somewhere on Daud, and carried him silently across rooftops where he could steal into her uncle's home and nearly murder him.

There was a knife on the shrine.

Daud's voice, shouting  _Do something!_ ** _Do something_** _!_ echoed in her ears, and the numbing, bracing wall she'd erected years ago to keep out pain and fear and worry began to crack just like Rudshore's flood wall, and she lunged. Her fingers closed over the hilt of the blade, and she swung it at the Outsider.

It bit into his arm, and he looked down at it, confused.

The people who sought him out, who built these shrines - they worshipped him. They begged him to appear to them. Callista knew the stories, had heard the rumors. They sacrificed blood and tears and seed, and they sent up prayers, abandoning the promises of discipline and rationality for an unpredictable, alluring fix. None had ever attacked him, she was sure, and if he appeared to Overseers, he appeared aware of what he risked.

She drew back to strike again, even as he began to laugh. He didn't bleed at first, and then she saw the rivers come, coating the skin bared by her slash in an instant, dripping in downpour to the floorboards, more than any person could ever bleed. She lashed out.

He disappeared.

She stood there, gasping for breath and trembling, staring at the blood running into the gaps between the boards. Her hand shook. The knife dropped from her fingers.

Somebody let out a shuddering breath, and she looked up at the doorway. Daud loomed in the doorway, gaze fixed on her.

" _You_ ," he breathed.

She didn't move as he approached. She couldn't. Whatever vicious savagery had made her throw herself at the Outsider was gone, and in its place was a bone-chilling emptiness. She didn't move as he passed her, caught the edge of the shrine's table in his hands, and hurled it over, sending the bone and rigging crashing to the floor. The thrumming sputtered, stopped. The glow faded, leaving only slanting sunlight in its wake.

She didn't move as he turned to her again, as he reached out and clasped her shoulders.

"You," he repeated, with something like wonder in his voice.

And then he kissed her, all teeth and lips and hunger, and she recognized the same desperate place inside of herself, and she clung to him.

If there was logic in it, she didn't know it, couldn't read it. The closest she came was a few brief thoughts of  _he doesn't worship the Outsider, he destroyed the shrine, he doesn't know me, he_ ** _wants_** _to know me_. He was broader than she was, but no taller, and she dragged him closer with a hand curled in his jacket. He let her. His hands dropped from her shoulders and instead he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her to him. He was hungry, drinking her in, tongue flashing in sudden darting movements along hers.

And then he let her go, stumbled back, and she mirrored him. The blood on the floor was gone. They stood only in an abandoned study, in an abandoned townhouse, in an abandoned district. The dead floated in the water three stories below.

"Get in the boat," he said. "I'll take you back."

"Back where?" She was shaking again.

"Commerce building. Or home. Somewhere. Wherever." He didn't look at her, instead wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "Say the word."

She thought about it for only a moment, then said, "The Commerce building."

"… Get in the boat," he said, still not looking at her.


End file.
